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The Haunted National House Inn

The National House was a stage stop for travelers going to Detroit or Chicago and was built in 1835. Before the Civil War, the inn served a different purpose. A hidden room constructed in the cellar made the inn part of the Underground Railroad. The secret room was found years later and during Prohibition hid illegal liquor shipments.

Spirits attach themselves to people, places or objects. When the inn was renovated and antiques placed in the rooms, paranormal occurrences started. Most of the ghostly visitations revolve around the “Lady in Red” who wanders around the inn, apparently going about her routine as she did when she was alive. Ask hotel operators nicely and they’ll tell you about the room that The Lady in Red insists the door be closed at all times.

Who was The Lady in Red?

Many theories of the identity of ghost dubbed The Lady in Red have been tossed around. The most popular are:

• A resident when the building was converted into apartments
• A woman traveling on the railroad who met a violent death
• Someone involved with the mob during Prohibition

Haunted Rooms of the National House Inn

• Hotel operators say the most haunt activity takes place in the “Charles Dickey Room.” Guests report that pictures have been knocked off the wall, guests have nightmares, and they sometimes smell cigar smoke when no person near has been smoking.

The Haunted Palmer House Hotel

When the cast and crew of the hit television show Ghost Adventures arrived in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, they didn’t know what to expect. After checking out the Palmer House Hotel, the group of paranormal investigators declared the local historic landmark haunted. Zak and his crew are just a few of the guests who experienced things that went bump in the night at the hotel.

Built in 1901, the Palmer House Hotel sits right on top of another hotel. That first hotel was the victim of a fire that swept through the property and burned the brick structure to the ground. The new Palmer House Hotel was a large and elaborate building with three floors, brick walls to keep fires from spreading and state of the art amenities. At the time of its construction, it was the only building in the city with interior electric lights and full electricity.

A popular story surrounds a little boy who stayed in the hotel with his parents. Though no one can recall exactly how he died, it’s clear that he enjoyed his stay because he never left. The little boy makes appearances in the hallways on the second floor. Guests have also heard the sounds of his rubber ball bouncing and moving through the halls.

Haunted Rooms of the Palmer Hotel

If you truly want to experience something paranormal, make sure you stay in either room 11 or room 17, which former guests claim is the most haunted. One terrified young woman woke in the middle of the night to see a man standing at the foot of her bed and staring at her. By the time she roused her husband, who was in bed beside her, the man she saw in her room was gone. Others claimed to see a tall and skinny man dressed in old-fashioned clothing standing in one of these rooms. He almost always appears in the middle of the night and disappears as quickly as he appeared.

There are also stories told about an elegant looking woman with a red turban perched on her head. At least one employee recalls seeing her walk out of the bar and disappear in front of his eyes. Others attempted to approach the woman and witnessed her vanish without a trace. Locals and hotel staff believe this woman and some of the other resident ghosts date back to the time of the former hotel and now linger in the Palmer House Hotel, which stands in its place.